Member Reviews
I had never heard of James Veitch before this book but I do get what seems to be an ever increasing amount of spam emails so I appreciated the idea of someone writing back to the spammers and playing along. This book was funny, more sonar first before the gag got old and repetitive.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I received an advanced review copy for free from NetGalley.
In case you don't know, James Veitch has been on TED Talk and various late night shows, showcasing how he messes with scammers. He always states that doing this, is keeping scammers away from people who may otherwise fall prey. He suggests that you can do this too, just don't use your regular email. I thought that we could get some insight about James but the entire book contains emails of him and scammers. While funny, I would much rather see him "perform" these accounts rather than read them. All in all its not a bad book, just not what I expected.
A very funny book. I'm glad James Veitch decided to correspond with scammers because hilarity resulted.
Having seen YouTube videos of comedian James Veitch describing his scammer-batting email replies, I knew what to expect from this book. Some of the same shenanigans are present here, along with a bunch of new gems in which the author relentlessly keeps up zany conversations until the scammers finally give up or figure out what he's doing. My favorite exchange involved a scammer who mentioned Mars as "one of the nine planets of the solar system," to which Mr. Veitch replies, "Are we counting Pluto, then? If so, are you sitting down? I have some news." Basically, it's not just the idea of replying to spam that makes these exchanges funny; it is that Mr. Veitch always seems to find a way to keep the conversations going and going until they end up someplace crazy. Anyone who has seen him describe driving his roommate nuts with a never-ending parade of rubber duckies will recognize the same guy who just does not stop until he takes everything too far. Amusing light reading, suitable as a gift.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital advance review copy.
Lightly entertaining little read, with an author Tami g the time to show what happens when you interact with the idiotic cons of email.
This was a quick read of emails between the author and scammers. Some were really funny, some were ok. It is amazing how far scammers will go to get money. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.
This was a fun and hilarious read. What a great idea to respond to scam emails and mess with people! Some of the interactions were funnier than the others but I was interesting to see the scammers trying to hard to get him to send money. The fact that some people in the world actually fall for these is sad, but this book could be used for those people so they know what to look out for.
This was awesome. The genius of comedians is that they manage to find new and hilarious ways of looking at and talking about everyday things. And the genius idea of James Veitch is writing back to email spammers. You know, the low energy cons of Nigerian princes and so on, third world country entrepreneurs utilizing the opportunity to connect globally to assist the gullible and naïve in contributing to their various economies. A fool and his money and all that. Well, normally you don’t think about them, delete button at most, but Veitch actually actively engages these people in laugh out loud email exchanges, be that a mail order bride scheme of any other money scam. It’s about as funny for the readers as it might be infuriating for the spammers, which is to say considerably so. I really had fun with this book. It’s such a slender volume, only 144 pages, very quickly read, took about 80 minutes, some of which were spent laughing aloud. About as long as a stand up act, in fact. And to the same effect. All in all a great way to start the day, I read this first thing in the morning. And just a fun, funny read in general. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
I received a copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I've seen some videos of James Veitch talking about scammers online, so I was very interested in this book. It has more transcripts of his conversations with scammers. They're funny, and I really enjoyed seeing the point at which each scammer realized that Veitch's responses were not sincere. It's a quick read, and I enjoyed it.